Right Thinking from the Left Coast

Tag: Human behavior

Some people are up in arms because they discovered government funded a $1.5 million study to find out why more than 3/4 of lesbians are fat. Now some of you might feel this is a waste of money, especially in these dire times, but I do not. I am seriously interested in finding out why known fish eaters get chubby. Did we get told a lie about a diet that involved more fish than meat being healthy? Inquiring minds want to know!

David Greenberg has a useful take on the Herman Cain business. He talks about the changing of sexual mores in politicis over the last fifty years — how extramarital affairs went from unspoken private behavior to very public and ruinous scandals; how divorce went from politically ruinous to acceptable; how homosexual behavior could once have destroyed a politician but is a smaller problem now. The relevance to Cain:

It may be hard today to imagine that sexual harassment could be considered anything but proof of a serious moral deficiency. The crime has appropriately moved from a widely tolerated practice to one whose gravity is dinned into the heads of every employee in every workplace. But the behaviors that fall under the rubric vary widely, and some may result not from malice but from the inability of men accustomed to one set of rules to adjust to new realities. Certain kinds of flirtation deemed unacceptable today could perhaps one day be regarded as relatively harmless. At the least, in this case, as in the others, we should halt the rush to judgmentalism. We shouldn’t assume that our own culture’s newly developed notions of sexual right and wrong are timeless and absolute.

Bill James once noted that social progress often comes in the guise of its opposite. In the early 90’s we had an explosion of sexual harassment scandals — Clinton, Clarence Thomas, tailhook, you name it. But what had changed was not men’s behavior. What had changed was that women stopped putting up with it. For whatever social or economic reason, the early 90’s was when millions of women said, “You know, I really don’t like it when you rub my shoulders like that at work.”

For many men, especially of Cain’s age, this was a radical shift in the landscape. Rush Limbaugh wrote a whole chapter about behavior in radio studios that would now be considered harassment. He wondered why women suddenly didn’t like it. What he missed was that women had never liked it; they had tolerated it.

We don’t know the details, of course, but the timing of the complaints makes me wonder if the same thing happened to Herman Cain. It is likely that the way he had acted around women didn’t change, but what was acceptable and unacceptable did. It’s also possible, as he claims, that his behavior wasn’t harassing but got swept up when the pendulum swung too far. As numerous people have pointed out, the settlement amounts are “nuisance suit” level.

What’s really critical is whether Cain changed his behavior or whether this behavior has continued. I’m willing to cut politicians some slack on past behavior or beliefs. But not if it is reflective of who they are today.

A current phenomena, part of the social network, “everything in my life must be shared because, well, it’s me” society is the public marriage proposal. I really hate these things, unless the guy gets rejected, then it is funny as hell. I suspect that this whole trend feeds in to the “I’m special so events in my life must rivet those around me” attitude that purveys much of today’s Gen Y’ers.

Any first year law student learned in like week one learns that you do not ask a question unless you damn sure know how it is going to be answered. And when discussing major decisions, like Pirelli’s or Michelin’s, inboard or outboard, Glock or Beretta, you should be going into this with your eyes wide open and the eventual outcome preordained.

What precipitated this rant was this story. Some trekkies at a Comic Con convention are standing in line waiting to score an autograph from one of the TV show stars, then Mr. Romantic decides to jam up the line and pull this stunt. No shame at all about even being in line for such an event (how old is that show anyway?), he thinks he will share some of his awesome life with innocent bystanders around him.

But here’s a question, are these public marriage proposals done with the hopes of pressuring the woman into saying yes? Clearly that does not work as evidenced by some of these great vids of public humiliation:

Why the slap? I’m a great lip reader ,” I signed you up for Jenny Craig, don’t want you looking like your mother in 5 years, Oh, and that sore I had on my lip? yyyeeeaaahhh”.

Sometimes I think it is all rehearsed, both parties complicit in getting their 15 minutes, but if just one of these guys learns his lesson ,”Don’t settle, you can do better, and next time keep it private, we already laughed at you once”, then my opinion might change for these future leaders of America.

DETROIT (WWJ) – According to a new report, 47 percent of Detroiters are ”functionally illiterate.” The alarming new statistics were released by the Detroit Regional Workforce Fund on Wednesday. WWJ Newsradio 950 spoke with the Fund’s Director, Karen Tyler-Ruiz, who explained exactly what this means. “Not able to fill out basic forms, for getting a job — those types of basic everyday (things). Reading a prescription; what’s on the bottle, how many you should take… just your basic everyday tasks,” she said.

Heh! And we wonder why? This is what you get when the left and the unions control your school. When you tell minorities that an education is a waste of time and that the America will never provide any opportunity for them. This is what you get when people are told that that multiculturalism thing and actually sticking to the three Rs are more important than wasting your time with the feel good bullshit indoctrination that passes for an education these days. Detroit is bought and owned by the left.

“I don’t really know how they get by, but they do. Are they getting by well? Well, that’s another question,” Tyler-Ruiz said. Some of the Detroit suburbs also have high numbers of functionally illiterate: 34 percent in Pontiac and 24 percent in Southfield. “For other major urban areas, we are a little bit on the high side… We compare, slightly higher, to Washington D.C.’s urban population, in certain ZIP codes in Washington D.C. and in Cleveland,” she said. Tyler Ruiz said only 10 percent of those who can’t read have gotten any help to resolve it.

Oh come on, the answer is simple: they have ignored the abysmal results of the school system and have patched that with bigger government programs to keep the serfs from eating each other alive.

The report will be used to provide better training for local workers.

QED. Seriously. When will they see things like this as an indictment of the left’s takeover of our education system and finally end the stranglehold they have on so many communities? Never, I guess. Who cares if these tools – and they are tools in a game to the left – are functionally illiterate? Shit, more work for social workers! It’s all a job creation program. Insane is an understatement.